Football's an Emotional Game

With referees and officials (Graham Poll is particular) being in the spotlight this past week Blackburn Rovers manager Mark Hughes has been quick to point out football is an emotional game and trying to remove this will be wrong.

Poll has been under the spotlight recently with his decisions to send off John Terry, under the claim "Chelsea needed to be taught a lesson" and Everton's James McFadden for foul and abusive language towards him, with it claimed McFadden called Poll a "cheat", which the Scottish International denies.

Speaking to Sky Sports News Hughes said:

"Well I think it is a case of whether or not the shout is aimed in the direction of the referee.

"There is industrial language used in the work place and the football field is our work place so on occasions players will swear.

"It is the emotion of the game and sometimes it can be the only release. It is understandable to a certain extent, but it should not be encouraged.

"I think there is a line you can step over and if you do you are liable to be sent off.

"Well we have to understand it is a game of emotion and people want to see emotion from players. If you start taking emotion out of the game it becomes a sterile and boring game.

"There are boundaries for emotion, but you should not take emotion out of the game."

I was watching You're on Sky Sports the other night and Don Goodman, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers (among many, many other teams!) striker was the studio guest. He said that he had obviously heard players swear at officials but had also heard them swear back! My view is in the heat of the moment we can say things, so within reason things should be viewed in this manor. Sometimes you think all that is needed is some common scene.

Obviously I wasn't anywhere near the two games but Terry didn't seem to do much, and if McFadden merely swore without calling Poll a cheat surely a booking would have been more fitting?

In a day and age where many officials WANT to be in the limelight like the players they officiate over do some of them take things too far for this? Poll is often viewed as one of these that craves the attention…

Sparky also went on to speak about the touchline "fracas" between Arsenal's manager Arsene Wenger and his West Ham United counterpart Alan Pardew, which has seen both charged by the Football Association with misconduct, he added:

"I can relate to both reactions. You don't like to see it happen, but you can understand the emotions given the circumstances.

"You have to be a little bit measured in your reactions. Maybe that's not what happened and people took exception to it.

"It's an emotional game. It's been a huge talking point because at the end of the day people like to see emotion.

"They are two guys at the top of the tree displaying that emotion that everybody in the ground was feeling at the same time.

"Although it needs to be done in the right place, you can understand it to a certain extent."

Where do you draw the line between emotion and for lack of a better word misconduct? Is the emotion being sucked out of the game? If so where does the blame for this lie? Is it down to the money involved in the game, officials, FIFA, UEFA, The FA?